Doug Barry

Imagine, if your mind is capable of conjuring such macabre visions, the cast of the Jersey Shore chasing each other on ATVs, shotgunning beers, and going muddin' in their pickup trucks. If you successfully pictured this in your mind's eye and at the same time muttered, "Jackpot," congratulations — you think just like a high-powered TV exec at MTV, the network that very soon will be bringing you Buckwild, a show that centers on a group of friends in West Virginia who "fight, drink, four-wheel, dive in mud puddles and generally tear things up."

Vanity Fair's Julie Miller is understandably horrified by the cultural decadence that will be parading through episodes of Buckwild, and not just because the show will be yet another iteration of the long line of MTV's shows about swollen, vainglorious humans who act more like cartoons of 20-somethings that someone wrote high on peyote and paint thinner and not actual 20-somethings that one might meet in the world. What's really upsetting is how routine this shtick is starting to become with MTV, so routine, writes Miller that

Although we don't know whether Buckwild's cast of nine is of drinking age or on road-kill diets, we do know that the stars come pre-packaged with their own tank-top-ready slogan ("Whatever happens, happens") and backwoods bios.

Tuning into Buckwild will probably be a lot like going to a Vaudeville show — the gags are so timeworn, you pretty much know where they're all coming from, but you still can't help yourself when someone's drunkenly piloted ATV slips on a banana peel.